First of all, as a native Chinese speaker I'd like to point out the painfully obvious fact:
精度枪 doesn't mean "precision degree rifle" in Chinese. It means "precision rifle". The characters 精度 literally means "precise degree", but when put together as a word, they mean "precision".
Okay, now that's out of the way, here's the meat and potatoes.
For years people have doubted the so-called Precision SKS for ammunition testing, as a) it's more common to have dedicated rigs resembling a barreled action than a full rifle for this job, and b) the Chinese are known for faking provenances and issue fake certificates for exported surpluses (with the Honor Guard rifles being the most well known in Chinese circles to be fakes). I too doubted it due to the crude markings and dubious claims of improved precision, until now.
Below is a screenshot I took from a Chinese military manual called 枪弹手册 (lit. Gun and Ammo Handbook) published by the National Defence Industry Press (国防工业出版社), this is a comprehensive handbook that outlines the then-current Chinese ammunition production standards, from dimensions, loadings, tolerances, testing procedures, QA rejection rates, down to the chemical compounds of the primers and even the wood used on the ammo boxes. In other words, this book is the final word on Chinese ammunition at the time.
On page 32, Table 2-10B "Type 56/53 7.62mm cartridge firing test subject content and amount", I found solid proof of such rifle's existence.
(https://i.imgur.com/DiJFrWz.png)
My translation:
(https://i.imgur.com/GJSWszw.jpeg)
For context, the "Semiautomatic Rifle" refers to the Type 56 SAR (SKS), the "SMG" refers to the Type 56 SMG (AK-47), the LMG refers to the Type 56 LMG (RPD), Carbine refers to the Type 53 Carbine (M44 Mosin) and the HMG is the Type 54 HMG (DShKM). The Type 56 cartridge refers to 7.62x39mm and Type 53 refers to 7.62x54mmR. Not sure what the big and small lockups mean as I haven't seen any references to such lockups in English.
The key information is found on the highlighted cell: Semiautomatic Rifle (Precision Rifle) or Precision Rig.
This completely debunked the theory that the PLA exclusively uses benched precision rigs for ammunition tests and does, indeed, uses SKS marked 精度枪 for these tests.
The handbook also covers handguns and guess what? They make those too. Both the Type 59 Makarov and Type 64 has 精度手枪, or "precision handgun" mentioned on page 15.
Interesting! Are the hanzi characters appearing on the imported precision rifles the same as used in this document?
Quote from: Phosphorus32 on August 11, 2024, 10:50:03 AM
Interesting! Are the hanzi characters appearing on the imported precision rifles the same as used in this document?
Yes, 精度枪, the three exact characters.
Trust me lol, Chinese is my first language.
Boy I missed a bunch of good stuff. This may be sticky material